Cost of living; show us you care, Boris Johnson – Jayne Dowle

I very much doubt he does. Here is a man who famously made it known in the late summer of 2020 that he finds it difficult to get by on less than £1m a year.

What with guests at highly-questionable Downing Street parties being asked to bring their own booze, Tory donors shelling out the best part of £180,000 to pay for redecorating his flat, and a grace and favour holiday home at Chequers, he’s hardly scrabbling down the back of the sofa hunting out spare change for school dinners.

The other evening Mr Johnson was snapped going out for dinner with his wife Carrie. They’d been to Oswald’s, a private members’ club in Mayfair, and she was wearing a black and white designer dress reported to cost £695, accessorised with a £413 Anya Hindmarch beaded shoulder bag.

Now obviously, it’s up to them how they spend their own money, but really? The cost of dress and bag together would add 
up to more than many families 
have to live on for a month. There’s a complete lack of comprehension here. If Partygate doesn’t get him first, the Prime Minister’s flagrant disregard 
for anyone other than himself could lead to Conservative meltdown.

Desperate so-called ‘Red Wall’ Tory MPs, led by former Cabinet minister Jake Berry, are fearful of losing their seats in any forthcoming election because No 10 is regarded as so out of touch with the rest of the country.

Mr Berry’s Northern Research Group has come up with a three-point plan to help stave off the very real cost of living crisis we face; sparing the poorest households from the rise in National Insurance contributions, freezing council tax for two years and scrapping green levies on energy bills for a year.

If the Prime Minister had any sense, he would at least listen. However his excuse for a ‘comms strategy’ consists basically of repeating the same thing over and over again to no avail.

“We’ve got to help people,” he said, speaking in a recent interview at a vaccine centre. “Particularly people on low incomes. We’ve got to help people with the cost of their 
fuel and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Have I missed something? Or is this just the latest example of the Alice in Wonderland political situation, a hot mess of denial, evasion, double-think and gaslighting?

I haven’t seen or heard a single Minister come up with a coherent strategy to tackle the rising cost of domestic energy.

The only thing Mr Johnson said in his interview that held weight was that the cost of fuel underpins the cost of everything else. Higher fuel bills don’t just impact upon our homes, but affect the costs borne by factories, food producers, warehouses, shops and supermarkets.

This is why action must be taken without delay – despite the whirlwind of controversy whipping through Downing Street this week. Remove VAT from all energy bills, possibly for the period of one year? This would save the average household around £60. Every penny will count this year. Mr Johnson has ruled out this suggestion, despite promising to exercise the sovereign government’s right to do so as part of his Brexit campaign.

Get the Treasury to cover the green energy levy we all pay for through our bills to support wind farms and other renewables? This one is supported by the Conservative Environment Network. However, it would be difficult to untangle legally and go directly against the PM’s much-trumpeted anti-climate change agenda.

Extend the Warm Home Discount Scheme, which gives around 2.2m pensioner and low-income households £140 off their electricity bill over winter? A sticking plaster and wouldn’t help squeezed middle-income families.

A potential £6.6bn windfall tax on bumper oil and gas profits? Labour’s idea, but little enthusiasm from government. Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, whose priority should surely be the welfare of children and young people, even said that a windfall tax would be “unfair” to the gas and electricity companies which are already “struggling”.

Struggling? Does this government even comprehend the meaning of the word? If it doesn’t show some urgency and take action on fuel bills and the cost of living, it soon will.

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